U3014, Spyder 4 Elite, DisplayCAL, calibration issues

What a nightmare that is. DUCCS wouldn't recognise the i1 Display Pro. I have noticed that it is not recognised properly in Device Manager. Started reading online and it seems it is because of DisplayCAL and AGRYLL driver. (DisplayCAL recognised it no problem though). I have uninstalled both DisplayCAL and the driver, deleted all left over folders. Still wouldn't recognise it. Even when I was pointing it to i1 Display driver which I got from Xrite website, Windows still wouldn't install or recognise it. In the end I have installed iProfiler with hope it will install a newer driver. Still the same, Windows not recognises it. I can see it in iProfiler though and also DUCCS now sees it too, but DUCCS won't work, because it says the monitor is not connected via USB (it is!). It recognises that I have u3014 connected, but it says it is not connected via USB, even though it is! Argh! Last chance is to calibrate it with iProfiler, which I will attempt now. After that I have no further ideas.

Just finished calibrating with iProfiler and the results are even worse than with DisplayCAL. Whites are brown! I am really out of ideas now. Thankfully I still have the profile created by Spyder 4 Elite calibrator with Spyder software. It's the only one combination so far that can create white whites on my u3014. Unfortunately it suffers from grey colorisation (green tint), but at least the whites are white.

Please help as I feel like banging my head on the wall. 2 calibrators (Spyder 4 Elite and i1 Display Pro), 4 calibration software - Spyder software (the best so far), Display CAL, DUCCS and iProfiler and results are laughable.

Help!

DUCCS recognises my monitor (u3014)

 but fails to connect to it (even though it is physically connected)

Therefore the calibration button is greyed out

I dont' think I'll be buying another Dell monitor. I think it's time to start saving for Eizo

Found out that only older DUCCS works with this monitor. Callibrated and whites are yellow again. Now calibrating with iProfiler on top of the hardware calibration created by DUCCS.

What is frustrating, is that during every calibration, when it displays white it really looks white. All is perfect up until the very last step when icc profile is created. As soon as the profile is created and loaded, white turns yellow.

iProfiler finished and whites are brown now. I'm going to jump off the bridge now

1- You DO NOT NEED to install drivers for i1d3. It's a HID device: plug it into Win/linux/osx, and it works. DisplayCAL does not need a driver for i1d3. It is written in ArgyllCMS/DisplayCAL doc. Uninstall it, reboot, uninstall all Xrite & dell software (including Xrite services), reboot. Make sure that you have no Xrite services, all clean. Make sure that default display profile is the empty profile from U3014 driver, a very few KBs file. Set it as Default profile in color management, devices tab, use my configuration. Plug i1d3, Windows will detect it as a HID device (no drivers!). Install DUCCS. Get DIsplayCAl & Argyll (ZIP standalone -my choice- or installer). Re do DUCCS stuff. Make sure it is using GB-LED. Validate which white you get after DCCS with DisplayCAL and RG phosphor correction for i1d3. HERE we'll see if colorimeter sees wrong or not.

2-I do not see what correction for colorimeter dis you use, or DisplayCAL tabs configuration. Hence I cannot say if the yellow you report is your fault (misconfiguration).

3-"As soon as the profile is created and loaded, white turns yellow." Check if you mess with Windows Night mode or f.lux or some of those weird and useless app/features. Even a more drastic approach: get a linux DVD live. Run it, get ArgyllCMS binaries + DisplayCAL fro linux. Start a GPU calibration. Choose proper spectral correction (RG phosphor), choose D65 white. Start calibration, set all RGB bars until you get white. Cancel calibration. Now you should have a monitor with D65 & uncalibrated grey. White 255 (in that Live CD) should look white... so at that point you will know that culprit is something YOU or "other app" did in windows configuration... that's a start.

4-To get a neutral grey is a more difficult journey with these Dells. I've suffered it. Your best chance is v1.6.5 with HW calibration (it takes twice measurements for grey) OR an AMD desktop card + DisplayCAL + Custom Color mode. Mine has mild to severe color cast in uncalibrated grey: v1.6.5 improved neutrality a lot form previous versiosn (although not perfect yet). My AMD card + DisplayCAL over any OSD mode (even calibrated CAL1/CAL2) smooths all greys to neutral, zero banding.

5-My next monitor will be a NEC PA, I have no doubts (just waiting for a Spectraview II update to solve some issues I've read fro the new models). I won't buy a Benq widegamut, not a LG widegamut, not an Asus widegamut, not a Dell widegamut... you know now. (BTW: you may find "funny" results with whitepoint, Color Navigator and Eizo CS entry models)

Thank you for your input @yumichan Thinking about it, all problems started when I have uninstalled Spyder software and installed Argyll + DisplayCAL. Maybe that has knocked something off in the settings somewhere. From that point, no calibrator and no software can set whites white. What's strange is, as I mentioned during calibrations white looks like it should, the moment ICC profile is created, by any of the software I used so far (Spyder, iProfiler, DUCCS, DisplayCAL) white turns yellow / brown. The best results so far I got with DUCCS, whites were the least yellow. On top of that calibration (which created CAL1 profile in my monitor), I have put the old Spyder ICC profile before the problems started and now I have good whites. I'm not sure about colour accuracy and can only go by my eyes (no software reads anything correctly now), but it looks OK. I am planning to buy a new m.2 drive for my PC soon. I will then have to reinstall Windows. I will wait until that moment with further investigating. I work long hours and can't afford to be losing days because of this issue. As a professional, calibration is extremely important, but deadlines are also important. If I reinstall Windows and still facing the same issue, this monitor goes straight out of my window. EIZO are pretty much industry standard, so will look into 31" 4k Coloredge one. Thank you again. I will report after I got new system in.

"What's strange is, as I mentioned during calibrations white looks like it should, the moment ICC profile is created, by any of the software I used so far (Spyder, iProfiler, DUCCS, DisplayCAL) white turns yellow / brown"

That points to some night mode, f.lux, "low blue light" app running behind.

Since you provide no more data, nothing cam be done.

The first thing I do after installing fresh copy of Windows is always to go through all the Windows setting and disable everything. Then after every major update, do the same. I just went through them again and everything is off. Night light mode was and still is off. The rest stuff you mentioned I don't have installed. It is a desktop PC and I don't install any **bleep** on it. Being a PC user for 20+ years, I am quite savvy and don't install random **bleep**.

I just went through all my apps again and uninstalled some unused stuff, but there wasn't anything there that could be causing such issues. I think a fresh Windows installation might be the only solution. Maybe some old software I had installed somewhere causing this issue (left something in registry for example) or maybe the Spyder software uninstalled in such way that is causing issues now (unlikely).

@yumichan

I know I said I will wait for the new drive, but I cannot sell on my Spyder 4 Elite, until I'm absolutely sure that I won't need it again. Besides, it will still be a few days before I order the new drive and then need to wait for quiet moment to be able to reinstall everything. So, I just went through you post and tried to follow the steps you mentioned. I have screenshotted everything to be sure I'm not making some basic mistakes somewhere.

I loaded the basic u3014.icm profile in Widows Color Managment settings and started off with DUCCS.

Calibration done

Then went on to verify with DisplayCAL just as you said. Here is the full report (if you right click on the images and "view image" you will be able to see it full size)

To my eyes, the whites are yellow. The next step will be to recalibrate using DisplayCAL, but I would appreciate if you could have a look at the report and let me know what you think about the results. Thank you

BTW it looks like DisplayCAL has changed the profile during verification. It should have been either the basic u3014.icm profile I loaded before the DUCCS calibration, or the profile created by DUCCS that should be loaded. During verification I noticed that screen flickered once and then whites turned from yellow to brown. Then when verification finished, it went back to yellow.

EDIT: just checked and the default profile is the one created by DUCCS, I don't know why DisplayCAL reports a different profile in the report.

EDIT2: In the report, in the Correlated Color Temperature section, the measured color temp at 0% is 13040K, at 5% is 7436K. This doesn't seem right.

If I load my old ICC profile created with Spyder, the whites are white and all looks fine (though I'm not sure how accurate the colours are, as it is an old profile), so it's not like the display is faulty, as it can do white whites.

OK, redoing the post as it just diappeared after I edited it.

@yumichan

I was trying to follow the steps from your post. Thank you for that!

First thing I've done is to change to the basic u3014.icm profile in Windows Color Management settings. The fired up DUCCS and followed steps. If you right click on the images and select "view image" you will be able to see it full size.

DUCCS:

Calibration and profiling done:

I then went on to verify the calibration with DisplayCAL just as you suggested. Bellow is the full report. I would appreciate if you have a look to see if you see something not right

To my eyes white look very yellow after calibration with DUCCS.

During DisplayCAL verification the screen flickered once and the whites turned brown. It looks like it loaded its own older ICC profile as it reports in the verification report. I went on to Color Managment settings after it finished verification, and the profile that is default and loaded is not the one DisplayCAL reports, but the one created by DUCCS.

The Correlated color temperature reports some extreme values at 0% and 5%.

I would appreciate if someone with more knowledge could have a look at the report and suggest something because I am all out of ideas.

DisplayCAL creates yellow whites. iProfiler creates brown whites (darker yellow).

Posted a long post with many screenshots, but it disappeared.

My responses are not showing on this thread....

Edit: it was some word filter...